ONE of the last remaining defences for protesters who commit criminal damage as an act of civil resistance was removed today.
Under the 1971 Criminal Damage Act, defendants could argue that the property owner would have consented to the damage knowing the circumstances behind the action.
Britain’s attorney general Victoria Prentis KC, asked the Court of Appeal to clarify the law after the acquittal of environmental activists who used the defence last year.
Government lawyers told the court that the use of the defence was too broad an interpretation of the law.
At the judgment, Lady Chief Justice Baroness Carr, Lord Justice William Davis and Mr Justice Garnham ruled that “political” beliefs were “too remote” to constitute “lawful excuse” for causing damage.
Baroness Carr said: “Evidence from the defendant about the facts of or effects of climate change would be inadmissible.”
Extinction Rebellion co-founder Clare Farrell was one of nine women who went to trial last November for shattering windows at HSBC’s headquarters, after it invested £80 billion in fossil fuels in the five years following the Paris Climate Agreement.
A jury made several requests for information, including on the Paris Agreement and what the government had done to address the climate crisis, and afterwards the defendants were acquitted.
Ms Farrell said: “The political establishment hates losing in court to non-violent campaigners, and it happens all the time these days.
“They are too cowardly to face the existential issues of our time, so they continue to criminalise those who point out their failures.
“Repression is their only answer, when what we need is more democracy.
“The courts are upholding the interests of an industry — fossil fuels — that’s dragging us to societal collapse against our will.”
A Just Stop Oil spokesperson highlighted that “the government and corporations can commit criminal damage with no fear of repercussions, destroying lives and our life support systems as they extract and burn fossil fuels.”
“It’s one law for them, and another for the rest of us.
“While their corruption goes unchecked, ordinary people are losing our rights to dissent and any legal defences we have for doing so.”
